Book Review

This paper reflects critically on management consultants. The paper acknowledges those commentaries which suggest that management consultants must be understood as an element or node within a wider network which constitutes an advice or knowledge industry. However, the paper argues that our understanding of the consultant node within such networks has been fashioned in a manner that serves to restrict our appreciation of the nature and scope of the advice available to managers. To this end the paper attempts to identify a larger network of actors and agencies excluded from both critical and celebratory accounts of the advice industry, which is none the less fundamental to the reproduction of management. The paper concludes with the suggestion that Latour’s analysis of world‐building may offer a useful heuristic to those who would seek to understand the ways in which networks constitute the managed world.     

Gender differences in perceptions of aftercare supports and services

Youth depart residential care with many continued risk factors, unique needs, and challenges as they reintegrate into the home, school, and community settings. Currently, there is limited research on needs and best practices in aftercare services and supports for youth departing from residential settings and even less is known about how these differ by gender. While preliminary studies have explored perceptions of need during reintegration and aftercare by youth and caregivers, little is known about how these may differ by gender or if perceptions change over time after experiencing the initial transition period. One way to address this knowledge gap is to identify how prepared males and females feel for reintegration in critical life domains, their beliefs about aftercare, and preferences regarding potential services or supports to aide in the reintegration at discharge. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore if males and females differ on preparedness for reintegration across critical life domains, beliefs about aftercare, and preferences regarding potential services or supports to aide in the reintegration at departure from a residential treatment facility (N = 132). Overall, very few differences were found between males and females at departure. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.     

An evaluation of the postqualifying framework

A new strategy for postqualifying training in social work was launched in 1990 by CCETSW with the publication of Paper 31. This paper reviews the subsequent implementation of the policy framework and identifies several core issues: level and parity; access and numbers; funding and resources; consortia formation and cohesion; quality and standards; and the role of CCETSW in relation to a UK wide system.

It is argued that the slow development of the new system stemmed from an excessively decentralised partnership approach in developing consortia and the low priority and funding devoted to postqualifying education and training. The quicker pace of development since 1995 has only been achieved through government pressure and CCETSW taking on a stronger lead role together with the continued ring-fenced funding for consortia and bursaries. Without substantial funding from the Department of Health/National Offices and CCETSW, it is questionable whether the objectives of a national widely accessible system of postqualifying education and training will be achieved. The rapid development since autumn 1995 has led to some compromise in standards and the new systems of quality assurance have yet to be tested. Whatever the general merits of partnership/collaboration, CCETSW needs to maintain its more positive development role and clarify the relationship to consortia and the legal status of consortia.

Published research and data on postqualifying education and training is extremely limited and the authors have drawn on their experiences and impressions of the evolving PQ systems during the 1990s. Now that the framework is operational, accrediting programmes/portfolio routes and recruiting and assessing candidates, it is essential to undertake independent research and evaluation into the system and its effectiveness.     

Responding to a Critique of ‘The Interpersonal Process in Generic Social Work’

The Social Workers Oncology Group is a professional support network, which brings together a group of specialist professionals with a unique knowledge about the psychosocial consequences of a cancer disease. The Group provides professional peer support, as well as providing a forum for the utilisation of research programmes and resource development.     

Perceived Relational Support in Adolescence: Dimensions,Configurations, and Adolescent Adjustment

The perceived relational support from four key providers (father, mother, special sibling, and best friend) on five provisions (quality of information, respect for autonomy, emotional support, convergence of goals, and acceptance) was examined for 2,262 adolescents (aged 12 – 18 years). In a variable‐centered approach, factor analyses yielded five dimensions of support: three specific to providers (parent, friend, and sibling support) and two specific to provisions (convergence of goals and respect for autonomy). Only parental support was found to change (decrease) across age. In a person‐centered approach, five types of adolescents with different configurations of perceived support were identified. The first three types differed in overall level of support (high, average, and low) for all of the five dimensions; the fourth type represented extremely low support from parents with above‐average support from best friends; the fifth type consisted of adolescents with no best friend. These configurations were significantly related to different patterns of adolescent adjustment in various domains (psychological well‐being, delinquency, substance use, and peer‐group functioning).     

Family Loyalty and Adolescent Problem Behavior: The Validity of the Family Group Effect

Erratum . Journal of Law and Society Volume 32 Issue 3 The present study examined the relation between perceived justice and trust within family relationships and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problem behavior. Data were gathered from the father, the mother, and two of their adolescent children in 288 families. The social relations model was used to assess perceived justice and trust at the family level and the individual level. Adolescent internalizing and externalizing problem behavior turned out to be best predicted at the family level. Adolescents from families with less just or trustworthy climates showed more of these problem behaviors. Also associations between adolescent problem behavior and individual characteristics of the adolescents were found: adolescents who were generally viewed as less just/trustworthy were reported to have more problems. Our findings suggest that processes at different levels of family functioning (i.e., individual, whole‐family) should be taken into account when investigating associations between family characteristics and children's outcomes.     

SELLING TIME: SITUATED TRANSACTIONS IN A NONINSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT*

Salespeople are well known for their artful constructions of strategies. They use these strategies to encase the sales transaction and assume that their success is somehow dependent on presentation of self and product. In this article we examine salespeople who sell time shares on vacation properties and assume that success in selling is related to: (1) the creation of a theatrical stage designed to entice pairs of customers (married couples) to listen to a sales pitch; (2) control of the interaction processes within the sales encounter so as to “divide and conquer” the dyad; and (3) the creation of incremental sequences of action extending from acknowledgment of the product validity to the purchaser's decision. We discuss how these particular processes relate to a sociological examination of situated transactions in general; and suggest that control of these processes does transform reluctant dyads into agreeable parties to pay relatively large sums of money for time sharing property “on the spot.”     

Two simplified proofs for Roberts’ theorem

Roberts (Aggregation and Revelation of Preferences. Papers presented at the 1st European Summer Workshop of the Econometric Society, pp. 321–349. North-Holland, 1979) showed that every social choice function that is ex-post implementable in private value settings must be weighted VCG, i.e. it maximizes the weighted social welfare. This paper provides two simplified proofs for this. The first proof uses the same underlying key-point, but significantly simplifies the technical construction around it, thus helps to shed light on it. The second proof builds on monotonicity conditions identified by Rochet (J Math Econ 16:191–200, 1987) and Bikhchandani et al. (Econometrica 74(4):1109–1132, 2006). This proof is for a weaker statement that assumes an additional condition of “player decisiveness”. Supported by grants from the Israeli Ministry of Science and the Israeli Academy of Sciences.